This invention relates to incontinence briefs and pants suitable for wearing by males and females.
Prior proposals for incontinence briefs or pants which were suitable to be worn by females and which were provided with means for attaching or accommodating pads to absorb urine or menstrual discharge are to be found in numerous prior patent specifications. In particular, such devices are described in British patent specification Nos. 292,464; 358,765; 436,869; 855,020; 878,455 and 888,827.
In British Pat. No. 1 143 419 it was proposed that a so-called sanitary slip should have a flexible support for containing or locating an absorbent member. The slip and support have and are connected together by corresponding fastening elements. British Pat. No. 1 178 212 discloses a sanitary garment comprising a stretchable panty body having in its crotch section a lining of waterproof material, the ends of which are respectively attached to the front and back panels of the panty form, whereas its side edges are gathered to the respective adjoining leg openings, the lining at each end being further covered with sections of waterproof material forming a front and a back pocket for inserting the ends of an absorbent pad, such as a sanitary napkin. In such a garment there is folded a double layer of thin waterproof material weldable to the lining and welded thereto through a pair of spaced welding seams forming a gap for maintaining the end of the absorbent pad.
It has been suggested in International Patent Application Publication No. WO85/03430 (BRIER) that a disposable waterproof encasement for an absorbent sanitary pad should be releasably fixed to an undergarment to convert that garment into a sanitary panty or a stress incontinence garment. A similar idea has been previously proposed in British Pat. No. 1 441 087 (KANGA), which provides a pocket for a removable pad of absorbent material which absorbs accidentally-discharged urine when in use.
British Pat. No. 1 580 550 (Fail Safe Apparel Corporation; invention PAPAJOHN) relates to a panty with a holder for a sanitary napkin. The holder is of waterproof material and opens with VELCRO flaps at either end so that the sanitary napkin can be inserted or removed. In normal wear, the flaps are fixed closed to retain the napkin in place. It is a feature of this arrangement, which is not particularly disadvantageous in the context of a holder for a sanitary napkin, that the holder is open-ended, in the sense that the folding over of the flaps into the closed position, i.e., so they are adjacent the outer wall of the holder, provides no liquid barrier.